Crazy in Paris

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The best question asked about France in a long time -
why a government that recently committed itself to fight
anti-Semitism on its own soil -- and made serious progress
-- would suddenly let the Iranian-backed Hezbollah shape
the views of its 5 million strong Muslim community??

Excellent question. It really is like France is schizophrenic.

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Crazy in Paris
WSJ.com; Review and Outlook
December 1, 2004

France has become "totally schizophrenic." That's how Sylvain Attal recently described his government's Middle East policy in the Paris daily Liberation. He was specifically referring to the French media regulators' decision two weeks ago to grant Hezbollah's TV channel Al Manar a broadcast license.

The word crazy does comes to mind when pondering why any Western government would make a TV channel that calls for the murder of Americans and Jews available to millions of Muslims. The regulator claimed a really "tough" agreement forbade any kind of incitement. But the same regulator yesterday asked France's superior administrative court to order the Eutelsat satellite company "to cease transmitting the station" because -- surprise, surprise -- Al Manar didn't respect its obligation. "Schizophrenic" seems to fit.

For the time being, the mouthpiece of the terror group Hezbollah is still on the air. Nor has the scandal been put to bed. The French media is awash with rumors, citing anonymous regulatory sources, that the government had been leaning hard on the TV watchdog to give Al Manar the green light in order to help win the release of the two French hostages in Iraq. Others question why a government that recently committed itself to fight anti-Semitism on its own soil -- and made serious progress -- would suddenly let the Iranian-backed Hezbollah shape the views of its 5 million strong Muslim community.

As the French snub Iraqi democrats, they nurture the friendship of Arab dictators . Witness, too, the French treatment of Yasser Arafat. Jacques Chirac eulogized the Palestinian leader without a thought to the countless victims of his terror. The French eagerness to serve radical Arab interests went even so far as to claim in Arafat's death certificate that he was born in Jerusalem, a lie that Arafat, who was born in Cairo, had carefully cultivated.

Paris has taken the "pragmatic" view that such pandering would cut it slack with Muslim radicals. In reality it has repeatedly come back to haunt France. Instead of keeping France "safe" from the Middle East conflict, French hyperbolic criticism of Israel has surely emboldened Arab youths to attack Jews, thus bringing the conflict to the streets of French cities.


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[edit on 12/2/2004 by FlyersFan]

Interesting article, thanks for bringing it to our attention. France (and Germany, to a lesser extent) has a long, misguided history of alliances to Muslim rulers, alliances that were mostly made "against" someone. During the XVI century, French rulers (mainly Francis I and his son Henry II) allied themselves to the Turkish Sultans and his Barbary subjects to fight against the Hapsburg suzerains (mainly Charles V/I). This alliance was seen by the rest of Europe as a total blasphemy: while Charles and his brother Maximilian were busy repelling the Turks from the very gates of Vienna, French troops stormed over the Hapsburg possessions in Italy (only to be crushed later). While the Catholic powers were fighting a desperate struggle against Barbary corsairs and raiders, Turkish fleets were shelterd in French ports and supplied with foodstuff by the French king, free to pillage the western Mediterranena Sea at their whim. When the same powers set aside their differences and united themselves under Don Juan of Austria to crush the Turkish fleet at Lepanto, only the French galleis were missing. This was repeated again and again during the course of history (it has to be said that it was a French invasion that ended the Barbary Pirate State's rule of terror in the XIX century), mainly to oppose Britain's growing colonial empire and the Netherland's naval and commercial power. During the second half of the XX century, France has had a mixed politics towards Muslim powers: they fought a terrible war in Algeria but, at the same time, courted their former protectorates and colonies in the Middle East. They supplied weapons to both Israel and Syria, but lost both these powerful countries when Syria was courted by the USSR and Israel taken under the USA's wing. All in all, we can say that France's policy towards the Muslim powers has been very inconclusive and very volatile and that what they recieved has always been less than what they've given to their "allies".

Sounds like the wonderful rewards of appeasement. Give someone an inch and they take a mile.

Well, this is hardly a surprise.

However, if the French overturn their ban on Muslim scarves in public, to appease the angry terrorists who kidnapped their people, I shall lose any respect I had for them before.

You NEVER change your internal policy to appease outside hostile people.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
You NEVER change your internal policy to appease outside hostile people.

The problem is that this new internal policy probably will
incite the 5 million Muslims that live in France. It isn't just
appeasing outside hostile people. It's creating hostile
people INSIDE the country. You mentioned the scarf ban.
You betchya it will be overturned. How could it not now?
There is now a violent propaganda machine running
with government sanction .... it's just a matter of time.

I see this as potentially explosive.